Turncoats and Renegades
by TeamITA
Summary: Having survived wars of the gods and Titans, Percy, Annabeth and their friends would have expected that a mortal threat would be nothing to worry themselves about. But the failings of human nature should never be underestimated, and with their new leader, the awful President Farrt, hell-bent on making America a dystopian world, they now face more challenges: namely, survival... AU
1. The End

"THE END IS NIGH!" the graffiti proclaimed in neon colours. Annabeth sighed. President Farrt had even messed up the pretty murals of Manhattan. Then again, she didn't know why she was surprised - Farrt messed up everything. She turned and walked away, down the streets of New Farrttown - _New York, New York, it's supposed to be New York_. Percy was waiting for her at the end of the road; she'd stopped briefly to examine the now-desiccated mural. She knew why he hadn't stopped to do the same; it hurt too much for him to examine the now-daily warnings of doom in too much detail.

She knew he missed Rachel. She'd been caught two years ago "harbouring" Leo, Calypso, Hazel and Frank in her dorm room at finishing school and been sentenced to death, the fugitives barely escaping with their lives. In her last, unmonitored conversation with Annabeth, before her termination, she'd made her friend swear on the River Styx to end this. (Preferably by throwing a hairbrush at Farrt, but she wasn't picky.)

Apollo had been pissed off at the loss of his oracle, but he hadn't stirred into action. None of the gods had.

Annabeth had once heard of the cooking experiment where a frog was dropped into a pot of boiling water, and jumped out immediately, but when it was put into warm water and slowly heated to boiling, the frog didn't notice the danger until it was too late. She felt like this was an accurate metaphor describing the political situation: no one had realised quite what it meant when Farrt was elected president, and very few had felt the water heating up.

Now they were close to boiling.

Farrt had been a joke. He was never taken seriously, even when he won. He had a stupid name and a stupid policy and said stupid things.

But no one was laughing anymore. They were too scared to.

Some of Annabeth's friends were in hiding - the rest might be dead for all she knew. But she still had her Percy, thank the gods.

She caught up to him then, and took his hand. They swung their arms in unison. "Happy Birthday, Seaweed Brain," she said softly. He smiled at her, and it had a lot more sadness to it than she would've liked.

"Thanks, Wise Girl," he quipped in response, then they passed by a poster on the wall. Annabeth could only make out a splash of yellow in her peripheral vision, but Percy turned his head to read it and the darkening of his face firmly cemented her decision _not_ to turn hers.

The streets were deserted; it was near curfew, and few dared to antagonise the president by breaking the rules he'd lovingly put in place _for their own safety_. Annabeth checked her watch; they themselves were risking punishment by cutting it so fine, but their suburban "bungalow" was only a street away, and they could get there in plenty of time.

The roads were congested with cars, despite the curfews. Most of them were parked - on the pavement, in the middle of the road, in garages, anywhere their drivers could find that didn't involve crashing through a wall - but a few had people in them, several of whom gave the couple odd looks before pointedly looking away. Annabeth couldn't tell if it was because they disapproved - if so, _fuck them, hypocrites_ \- or because they didn't want to be associated with people who so obviously walked the line between legal and illegal.

Not that Percy and Annabeth looked particularly like renegades. They were very obviously a perfectly no nonsense, young, married couple, thank you very much. Nothing about the image they presented to the mortal public suggested they so much as _disagreed_ with any of Farrt's policies, let alone that they were a pair of demigods who'd saved the world from the domination of malignant forces (twice) and had survived adventures and perils untold.

They were perfectly ordinary, to their neighbours.

The pair turned a street corner and stepped onto their own road. There were fewer propaganda posters here, though still plenty - the only splash of colour in an otherwise drab environment. Annabeth wanted to wince when she saw the one about conscription to the army, mandatory for all able-bodied men past age twenty, younger if the authorities showed a personal interest in you. Jason had already been snapped up and forced to train to join the Elite - the highest level division known to those hostile to the regime as _The Killers_ , who were obliged to accompany Farrt at all times and bodily protect him from assassination attempts.

Annabeth had never seen a Killer in person - Jason hadn't returned in the six months since he'd been taken to train as one - but she'd heard rumours that they were brainwashed until they used their own bodies as shields for the president, with no thought in their heads but loyalty to him, no thought for their own lives or the lives of their loved ones were they to die.

There was nothing but duty, for them.

Annabeth would be forever grateful to the gods that Percy was too unassuming to garner attention from the authorities in that way.

Not that it mattered much, she mused with a frown. It was his twentieth birthday today. His conscription letter was coming, whether they were prepared or not.

They were not prepared. Or rather, _she_ was not prepared. She would never be.

They reached their doorstep a minute before the curfew came. A police car drove by, and had the audacity to stop and watch as Percy fumbled with the key and unlocked the door, only driving on when it was clear that they had every intention of going inside into the warm. August or not, it was _cold_.

She shot the car a narrow glare as it disappeared around the corner. She hardly heard Percy's hissed, " _Careful_ ," but let him take her hand and lead her into the dim entryway.

From the outside, their house was a single-storey bungalow with a small garden and a nice enough door. But the Mist was at work here - operated by Hecate herself - and inside it was a three-floor house with four bedrooms, three bathrooms and two kitchens. When Rachel had insisted they move in here shortly after Farrt's election four years previous, even giving them the money to do it, Annabeth hadn't understood why they'd need so much space. But her friend had been insistent that they'd need it someday, so they'd accepted.

And now Rachel was dead, and they needed the large house more than ever.

She wordlessly handed Percy her coat to hang up. She could hear voices above them as she climbed the stairs, light footsteps that she'd been able to determine belonged to Thalia sometime during the third month of their confinement, and the crackling of a radio tuned into the more anti-Farrt stations.

"-course he did," she heard Piper mutter, no doubt in response to whatever latest atrocity the man had said. Annabeth emerged from the stairwell to see her friends huddled on the sofas in the living area, listening intently to the few words that could be heard between the interference on the line. Piper glanced up, her braids swinging. "Hello."

"Hi." She slumped onto a sofa herself, and noticed the small, misshapen cupcake on the table. A few of the spare blueberries seemed to have been crammed into it, giving it a bruised tinge. There was a candle speared in the top, along with a scrap of paper wrapped round a cocktail stick that read _Happy Birthday, Percy_. She glanced up to see Nico watching her; she looked at Thalia and said earnestly, "That's so sweet."

Will, who was sitting on the sofa opposite them, hissed, "Shhh!" with a smile that the current Armageddon had never been quite able to steal from him, and shouted "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" when Percy's form emerged from the stairwell.

Her boyfriend grinned at the sight of the cupcake, and she could tell he was genuinely touched by the gesture. "Awww, thanks, Will."

"We don't have any presents for you, I'm afraid," Thalia added. She'd gone into hiding with the other three when Artemis had retreated from the wild to argue the gods into doing something about the situation with America, sending her Hunters to help protect the demigods in whatever way they could. "But we hope you like it anyway."

Will passed it to Annabeth, who passed it to Percy when he took a seat next to her. "It's perfect." He grinned. "How did you remember I liked blue stuff?"

"Other than the fact that every person who's ever known you knows that?" drawled Piper. "Thalia asked Annabeth."

Nico lifted his head then, and Percy seemed to understand the weight of the look the younger boy was giving him. "Did it come?" he asked cautiously, his fingers splaying themselves on his knees like he was bracing himself for a physical blow.

Nico nodded wordlessly, and passed over an innocent-looking envelope that had been lying innocuously on the table. With hands that shook slightly, Percy opened it, glanced over it, and closed his eyes in defeat.

 _To Perseus Jackson... you have reached your twentieth birthday... mandatory conscription... expect to see you soon._

Annabeth's stomach plummeted when she glanced at the paper over his shoulder. Percy crumpled it into a ball in his fists.


	2. Officer 313

Jason went reeling when a fist connected with his jaw. Stars flashed in front of his eyes but he had the good sense to throw himself to the side as he saw a foot lash out and try to catch him in the stomach. He lost his balance, rolled, and came back up again for another attack.

This was impossible, trying to reign in the military skills that had been drilled into him from when he was young, and be like an ordinary mortal. Well not _ordinary_ , since he'd been selected (forced) to join the Elite ( _the Killers, the Killers, you're a Killer, Jason Grace_ ) and have the wonderful privilege of serving their beloved President Farrt and ensuring the safety and security of the Orange House.

Sorry, _Gold House_. After all, the White House had been painted gold upon Farrt's election, only for the extreme weather that was _totally_ not caused by non-existent climate change to wear away the metallic tinge to the paint, making it... well, luminous orange.

Jason was rather rudely yanked out of his sarcastic musings by a punch to the face.

Training to be a Killer was hard. He scrambled to his feet. He'd been here for nearly six months, and the promised biannual leave was approaching rapidly. Thank the gods, Jason thought, looking at the burly form of his opponent, and the sneer that twisted his lips. He needed to get out of this place.

He blocked the aimed punch, and sent his own, his opponent staggering back. The Killer spat at the floor, and rounded on Jason again, suddenly far more riled up than he was expected to be.

But Jason didn't have the opportunity to wonder about that, because a moment later, the esteemed President Farrt walked in and said, "Good work, boys!"

With blood running down the side of his face, Jason failed to see what was _good_ about this situation.

Once the rest of the Killers present in the room were alerted to the president's presence, everyone, including Jason, stopped their fights and bowed in eerie unison. Farrt gave a small, pleased smile; looking at him made Jason uncomfortable. Jason didn't want to be a violent person, but he couldn't deny the overwhelming urge to punch Farrt in the stupid, smug - he forced himself to take a deep breath - face.

His friends were in hiding, because of this man. His friends might be dead, because of this man. And he had been conscripted to defend him with his life.

A loud bang shocked the Elite into immediate action.

Speak of the devil.

Jason's reactions had always been on point, but his opponent - what was his name again? Oh yeah, _he didn't have one_ \- reacted first, bodily flinging himself in the path of the bullet, in front of his idolised president. Officer 279, Jason remembered suddenly, with a peculiar clarity. That was the designation he'd been given after he was stripped of his name.

The bullet collided with his midriff with a wet thunk.

Jason was frozen as he watched the blood seep onto the pristine marble floor - because Farrt was nothing if not decadent - and only snapped to when he realised the rest of the Elite was moving, checking the area, dragging down a limp body from its previous perch on the windowsill. He looked around to see where to go, what to do, and made the mistake of catching Farrt's eye.

The president looked at Officer 279's body dispassionately. He did not look surprised. When he caught Jason's eye, though, the side of his mouth quirked and he gave him what seemed to be an obscure parody of a reassuring smile. Jason tried not to shudder.

Farrt walked right up to him, and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Where'd you get that scar on your lip, son?" he asked jovially. "beat up a few undesirables?"

Jason gritted his teeth, but forced himself to relax. "Yeah. . ." he replied non-commitally, trying not to think about staplers.

The president laughed, and clapped his shoulder. "Good on you!" he exclaimed. "A fine example of American youth!" He walked off to inspect the prone body f the assassin, who'd been brought down from their perch.

Jason couldn't hold in his minute gasp when he saw the face of Farrt's attacker.

A crimson mouth, a tall and buff figure being dragged away, half conscious. A matted mess of curly dark hair, and blue eyes that weren't quite lucid, but somehow managed to meet Jason's gaze.

The world seemed to tilt; he wasn't sure if it was the way those eyes didn't line up - the intensely familiar way those eyes didn't line up - or just the feeling of the floor being ripped out beneath him.

When they dragged his old friend Dakota away, he had no choice but to follow.

Half an hour later, Jason was summoned into the interrogation chamber of the Orange House with the instruction of _assisting_ the flow of the conversation. He'd spent fifteen minutes in the communal bathrooms having a shower and fervently hoping none of his brainwashed comrades came in and asked why he was here. He then spent an additional fifteen minutes just staring at the mirror, and trying not to hallucinate blood on his hands.

Finally, someone noticed his unauthorised absence and contacted him over the speakers with the command to attend to the matters in Room 5321.

" _Now,_ Officer 313," the announcer said, a slight threat in his booming voice. Jason had no choice but to comply, even if he knew and abhorred what, exactly, went on in Room 5321.

Dakota's screams could be heard from fairly far away, and Jason didn't even need to look at the numbers on the doors to guide himself towards the interrogation chamber. Farrt had changed and remodelled and remodelled some more when he came into power, and now the place was almost unrecognisable from its former self. It was intimidating to walk its halls.

If he'd thought the screams were loud before, when he opened the door the door they were deafening. He looked over to see Dakota - _his friend, his friend, his friend_ \- writhing on the interrogation table, sobbing and begging for mercy from people he knew had none. His head lolled to the side as his interrogators paused for an instant to look over at Jason.

"Are you the replacement?" one of them asked, tone curt. "Officer 313?"

"Yeah," Jason said, then caught himself. "Yes. Sir."

Dakota's head turned at the sound of his voice; Jason had to stop himself from fidgeting under his gaze. The other officer dealt the demigod a sharp slap for the motion.

The first officer strode out of the room, and didn't seem particularly relieved to do so - if anything, he was disappointed. Jason tried not to curse at his retreating back.

The remaining officer eyed him harshly. "You take over his job then," and handed Jason the notepad. Several pages had dark brown stains on them.

Dakota was still watching, his gaze fixed on Jason. His expression, whilst somewhat shielded by the broken nose he'd received, was something uncomfortably akin to betrayal.

The officer next to Jason shifted, obviously ready to resume.

Dakota noticed as well, and took his eyes off Jason for the first time since he entered the room. Before the other officer could strike, that uneven gaze flicked to Jason, then away just as quickly, like he was repulsive to look at. He stared at an indistinct spot on the ceiling instead.

"You were our saving grace!" Dakota shouted suddenly, his voice hoarse. His voice dropped then, as he mumbled, "We've always done it low key. . ." He took a breath, and screamed again. " _You were our saving grace!_ "

"Thank you for your cooperation," the other officer chirped, morbidly cheerful. "We'll be taking that as a confession, and escort you to the execution room." Jason tuned out as the officer called for another officer to come and take Dakota away. As soon as protocol allowed it, he left that room like it was on fire.

Farrt's secretary approached him in the hallway. Her expression was blank and apathetic as usual, her blonde hair tied back in a bun, but he forced himself not to snap at her in his questionable state of mind - she went through enough as it was. "Officer 313?" she asked, her tone flat. "I have been sent to inform you that our beloved President Farrt has noted your weariness with training, and requested your biannual two week leave be advanced. You may leave now. Go home."


	3. Damn Nation

Perhaps it was irrational, but seeing the nosebleed he'd accidentally given his opponent, and the way it dripped onto the floor, gave Percy painful flashbacks.

"Sorry about that," he muttered.

The guy opposite him raised his eyebrows. "First apology I've heard in a while," he commented.

"Bad company?" Percy couldn't quite keep the sympathy out of his voice.

The guy's eyebrows shot up even further. His hands twitched to the sleeves of his coat, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. "The entire damn nation is bad company at the moment," he murmured darkly, and Percy's spine stiffened instinctively as one of the commanders walked past.

"What are you talking about?" he asked innocuously. His voice was at least an octave higher than normal.

The guy laughed bitterly. "Look around you, kid," he scoffed. They looked around the training arena, at all the other conscripts and new recruits for the Zombies (sorry, _Farrt's Army_ , the _FA_ ). "Do you _want_ to be here?"

Percy kept one harsh eye on the officers around them, even as he shook his head. It felt like an admission.

"Finally," the guy said. "Someone sane."

Despite himself, Percy's curiosity spiked. "What's your name?"

The guy snorted. His head jerked up as he did; his long dark hair flopped against his face. "What? You gonna report me?"

Percy's mouth fell open. "No!" he said, perhaps a little too vehemently. "Of course not!"

"You seem sincere."

"That's because I am!" He tried to soften his voice, but it still came out as slightly offended.

The guy laughed. His hazel eyes narrowed for an instant, and Percy noticed he had very dark lashes, that almost completely obscured his irises from sight when he squinted. Then the guy's expression cleared again, and the observation fled his mind.

"My name's Jonathan." He grinned at Percy; his teeth were very white. "And you're Percy Jackson - I saw you go up when your name was called. Wasn't there a famous Percy Jackson? He'd be your age now, I think, who was kidnapped 'bout eight years ago and had a gunfight with his captor on Los Angeles beach."

Percy laughed, slightly more hysterically than the situation called for. "There probably was. It wasn't me, though."

The guy - Jonathan - shrugged. "Shame. He was like, only twelve, but I remember doing a report on it for a school project at the time - I was sixteen. We had to write about a news article we found, and I just thought it was _so cool_."

"Ahahaha," Percy attempted weakly. Either Jonathan didn't notice his discomfort, didn't care, or was too caught up in the memory to comment on it.

"So I take it you're not fond of Farrt?" Percy ventured, and the look Jonathan gave him was scathing.

"Well for one, it's not like I'm subtle about hating the man," he drawled. "And two, say it a little louder, would you? I can't _wait_ to be executed."

Percy glanced around immediately, and sighed in relief when he realised there was no one looking at them. "Sorry."

"Two apologies in ten minutes," Jonathan remarked. "You're on fire today. There's hope for the world after all."

"Sorry."

They both burst out laughing.

Conversation flowed easily after that. Jonathan was technically twenty four, but he'd refused to conscript aged twenty, and they' let him off - to begin with. He'd received a second letter on his twenty fourth birthday, threatening bodily harm if he didn't comply.

Jonathan was born and raised in New York - "It is _not_ called 'New Farrttown', thank you very much" - and had a sister named Adele who'd moved to Kansas sometime in the last year. His father and uncle had both been sent to asylums for "seeing monsters", Jonathan rolled his eyes at that, but he was convinced it was a political move to get the rest of the family in line.

Percy refused to mention that his mother also the had the Sight and had been sent to an asylum when she'd said the wrong thing in front of the wrong person. Paul had gone with her when he treated the "visions" like a genuine threat, and his little sister Estelle was still with Camp Half Blood - he hoped. After she'd started glowing green upon Rachel's death, they'd figured that was the best place for her.

Jonathan had just expressed his futile desire to move to that single city in the south of England - an ally of America - which was reportedly breaking off from their home country to become its own Republic, when one of the commanding officers walked up to them.

"Jonathan Cole," the man intoned, his voice disapproving and alarmingly flat. "You are under arrest for high treason."

"High treason?" It may have been Percy who said it, or Jonathan; he really didn't know. The officer addressed both of them.

"Yes, high treason. Facets include spreading misinformation, expressing discontented views, and intending to collaborate with an enemy state." The officer reached for Jonathan's wrists, a pair of handcuffs hanging from his belt, but the man stepped back to evade it. "Resisting arrest can and will be added to your sentence if you don't come peacefully."

"Like hell I'll come peacefully." He glanced at Percy with a sneer, but the gormless look on his face obviously betrayed that the demigod had no idea this would happen. Jonathan's face softened.

"Sir," the officer insisted. "You will be coming with me. You are under arrest."

Jonathan took another step back, glanced at Percy, then away again. He turned up the sleeves of his coat - _like he's a turncoat_ , Percy observed idly, not sure why his brain was supplying this information. All those years with Annabeth. . . Though he didn't regret it one bit.

He was so distracted by his thoughts that he almost missed it when Jonathan threw the first punch. The fight was fierce and desperate, but his newfound friend inevitably lost, being dragged away to face trial (and execution).

Percy returned home from training that day dazed, feeling like something had irrevocably changed.


	4. Ha Ha

Annabeth heard a distinctive knocking on the door, and hastened to answer it. It was, as she'd expected, Percy. He looked extremely bewildered.

"A black bird just dropped this on my head," he said, waving a letter around. "I don't suppose-"

Annabeth yanked him inside, and grabbed the letter out of his hand before he even had the chance to regain his balance. She recognised that handwriting.

"It's from my dead cousin," she announced. "And that means it was a raven that delivered it, _not_ a blackbird."

Percy gave a faint protestation - "I said _black bird_ not _blackbird_!" - but Annabeth was already legging it up the stairs and tearing the envelope open. Magnus's letter bore marks from where the raven's claws had smudged the still-wet ink upon receiving it, and she noticed with a sinking heart that the handwriting was messier, the message shorter than usual. As she read through it, she felt Percy brush past her and collapse, groaning, onto the sofa. He was muttering something incoherent, and Thalia, sitting in an armchair knitting (she'd picked up the habit after she'd been forced to go into hiding - she kept the needles sharpened in case of a fight), asked teasingly, "Been brainwashed yet, Kelp Head?"

"Not a joking matter," Percy mumbled back, his face implanted in a pillow. Thalia said something back, but Annabeth had finished reading the letter, and was writing her own response on the back of the paper.

"Magnus is finding it harder to sneak messages out of Valhalla," she summarised out loud. "We might not hear from him any time soon. I don't know how I'm going to get the response through to him."

"Ask my dad," Nico said without looking at them as he walked through the room to get a snack from the adjacent kitchen. "He can probably access places of the dead - Norse mythology or not."

"Great. Can you ask him for us?" Nico gave her a narrow-eyed glare - he must have only just woken up. He looked cranky. But he nodded sharply, so Annabeth counted it as a win. She grinned, trailing her gaze across towards Thalia, only for her eyes to catch on a black smudge on the wall.

Her limbs locked up.

Percy was jerked out of his contemplative stupor by her shrill screaming.

"It's a spider!" Thalia shouted, dropping about a thousand stitches as she slid her knitting needles out of the wool into attack position. "Battle stations!"

Percy was instantly moving, and Annabeth barely had time to blink before he'd whipped Magnus's letter out of her hands and was shepherding her away from the kitchen, where the spider had been sighted. Nico dropped his biscuit to grab a cup from the washing up bowl. Thalia stalked towards the offending arachnid, brandishing her needles like some sort of dual-wielding terror.

Annabeth's scream had roused Piper from one of the other rooms; when she strolled in she took a measure of the situation and promptly leapt onto a chair.

"My noble saviour," Annabeth drawled, because sarcasm is the antidote to all shock. At least it wasn't freaking Arachne this time. Piper just gave her a droll look.

There was a crash as Nico slammed the glass to the wall, and Percy rushed over with the letter, tripped, collided with the wall, and slid down it. Nico, who having spent months at a time in a malignant labyrinth was more than used to creepy crawlies, grabbed the letter from his hands and shifted the position of the cup so he was cradling it against his chest. Through the glass, Annabeth could see the eight-legged death dealer scrabbling at the walls of its prison like an animated bundle of wire.

No one realised Will had been standing in the doorway until he cleared his throat. "Isn't this the third time this month?" He walked over to his boyfriend to peer at the spider. "At least Thalia didn't impale it this time."

He shot her a glare, even as she twirled her knitting needles in one hand, looking more threatening than someone with knitting needles had any right to be.

" _Thank you_ , for getting rid of that foul monster," said a new voice.

Annabeth whirled round so fast she got whiplash. "Mom?"

Athena looked at Percy, still lying face-down on the floor, eyebrow raised. For an instant Annabeth could imagine her as an owl with its feathers severely ruffled. "You can get up now, Percy Jackson," she drawled, and for a moment Annabeth felt like she was thanking Piper for valiantly rescuing her for the second time in five minutes. "I'm sure my daughter is most grateful for your efforts to protect her."

Percy looked up, abashed, though that might be because he'd bashed his nose against the floor. "It's an honour to serve," he told her. "Of course, none of you could have materialised before we'd gotten rid of it."

Because there _were_ more of them. At that moment, Thalia reflexively stabbed Hades with one of her needles - probably because she hadn't yet stabbed anything today. The god yelped in pain and yanked the stick out of his arm. "I'm immortal," he muttered. "I'm above this."

Nico looked like he wanted to beat his head against the wall.

Athena, however, was less interested in their antics, and instead assumed the faintly constipated expression she wore whenever she had to deal with Percy's sass. Despite the undesirable frequency of this expression, Annabeth wasn't worried about him; he had Poseidon as a dad, and her as a girlfriend. Athena didn't particularly want to upset them by disintegrating someone they loved.

Artemis, who'd also appeared alongside them, was lecturing Thalia: "Not that your aim and reflexes aren't immaculate, but maybe next time don't stab the Lord of the Dead."

Thalia, seemingly born without respect for male deities, rolled her eyes. "Yes, milady."

Hestia was the last one remaining; she and Will seemed to be sharing a look that disturbingly reminded Annabeth of two suffering teenagers in a room of toddlers.

"Not that we're not thrilled you're here," Annabeth cut in then, saving Percy from his death-glare contest, Thalia from her lecture, and Nico from a very awkward explanation involving knitting needles, "but _why_ are you all here?"

All the goddesses (and god) fixed their eyes on her simultaneously. She felt like a heretic amongst fanatics.

And then Athena smiled and declared, "We are here to announce we are forming a coalition of gods sympathetic to your plight, and that if we can in any way interfere in order to assist you, we shall do so. That demon needs to be stopped. The rest of the gods may have sequestered themselves on Mount Olympus, but we shall _not_."

"And Zeus is rather annoyed that Farrt's turned the Empire State Building into a giant billboard," Artemis added helpfully. "He might be spurred into action before long."

"Great." Thalia seemed extra sarcastic right now, as if to make up for her moment of deference. "Hades, Athena, Hestia and Artemis. Are you the HAHA Association, by any chance?"

Hades looked outraged, but Hestia looked amused. Athena smirked. "I told you they would see it!"

Since Hades still looked pretty pissed off, Annabeth stepped forwards quickly. "We thank you for your pledge," she said diplomatically. The gods nodded at her in turn - a surprising gesture of respect (not that she didn't deserve it; she'd saved the world _three times_ ) - and exchanged looks.

"Wait!" Nico cried, before they could vanish into thin air. He grabbed Magnus's letter, and waved it in front of him. "Dad, could you get this to Annabeth's cousin? He's in Valhalla."

Hades took it begrudgingly, "What's his name again? Mangus?"

"Magnus. Magnus Chase," Annabeth corrected.

He shot her an irritated look, but at least he didn't vaporise her. "Yes, I could have inferred that from his relation to you, Annabeth Chase."

And with _that_ goodwill cheering the room, the HAHA Association disappeared.

Annabeth stared at where the letter had been. She hoped Magnus would be alright. Valhalla seemed safer than most places, but. . .

They'd lost contact with too many friends over the years. The Kanes had evacuated to England, and as far as she knew were fighting to set up a Nome in that new city-state in the South of England, which had attempted to form its own country, separate from American and British politics. Frank and Hazel were laying low in Canada, Calypso and Leo in Mexico, and no one knew where Camps Halfblood and Jupiter had disappeared; neither of their locations were occupied any longer. They could only hope Percy's sister was still with them, safe.

She glanced up to see Nico inspecting the glass with peculiar care.

The _empty_ glass.

Nico's voice was curiously neutral. "We have a problem."

That got everyone's attention. He swallowed. "We may have lost the spider." Will gave him a look, ". . . _I_ may have lost the spider."

There was a brief silence before everyone screamed (again).

And through that silence, there came a knock at the door.


End file.
